Internet Marketing Consulting Blog

Google AdWords Management & Pay Per Click Marketing Blog

Internet Marketing & Consulting by Windy City Strategies, Chicago Illinois. A full service Internet Consulting company specializing in Pay Per Click Management, PPC, Website Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Local Business Listings, Shopping Portal Management, SEO, and Social Media Marketing, SMM.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Google Maps Now Has Biking Directions

Google has partnered with Rails-to-Trails (RTC), a nonprofit focused on creating a network of trails from former rail lines, to add a new feature to Google Maps- biking directions.

Google Maps has biking route details for more than 150 U.S. cities covering more than 12,000 miles of trails and bike lanes. Google said it wants to keep adding new trail information and wants feedback from riders via the "Report a Problem" tool.

The new feature allows Google Maps users to type their destination in to get directions for the best route for bicycling. Google said its algorithm is weighed to prefer routing on trails as opposed to open roads with traffic.

"We're thrilled to be working with Rails-to-Trails Conservancy to make RTC's extensive bike trail data available through Google Maps and Google Earth," says Shannon Guymon, Product Manager for Google Maps.

"Bikers all over the country now will be able to explore new trails or find specific directions in their local community with just a few clicks of their mouse."

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 8:33 AM

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Google Launches Public Data Explorer Labs Experiment

Google launched a new Google Labs experiment called Public Data Explorer. This will take large datasets and give them a new visual interface with animated charts and maps.

"As the charts and maps animate over time, the changes in the world become easier to understand," Google explains in the description. "You don't have to be a data expert to navigate between different views, make your own comparisons, and share your findings."

"Students, journalists, policy makers and everyone else can play with the tool to create visualizations of public data, link to them, or embed them in their own webpages," says Google. "Embedded charts and links can update automatically so you’re always sharing the latest available data."

There are six examples available on the product page to mess around with and get the feel for how Public Data Explorer will work.

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 8:28 AM

Friday, March 5, 2010

Microsoft Launches First App for Google's Android

During his keynote at SMX in Santa Clara, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made it clear that the company wants more people to use its products not what device they’re using. Though his focus was solely on Microsoft’s Bing search engine, the company kept with his philosophy since it released its first Android application.

Microsoft announced the release of its Microsoft Tag Reader application for Android, which is now available in Google's Android Market. The application is free and the company’s description states:

Google Android Microsoft Tag allows you to discover information and entertainment by scanning mobile barcodes with your phone. Just download the Tag Reader, scan a Tag anywhere you see one- in a magazine, brochure, on product packages, signs or storefronts- and access information, videos, promotions, exclusive offers, and much more.

"It's important to give more people access to Tag because there’s huge demand for reliable mobile barcoding – businesses and consumers are eager to find creative ways to use their phone and hyperlink the real world," says Benjamin Gauthey with Microsoft Tag.

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 6:13 AM

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Google To Offer Street View Opt-Out In Germany

Google’s been going back-and-forth over Street View in Germany where one Google representative recently hinted that the company wants to move forward given that German authorities doesn’t create laws against the program. Now, Google's given in a bit, allowing people to keep their properties out of Street View from the start.

Google didn’t want a confrontation due to fear of defeat or PR reasons. According to Google’s chief technology advocate, Joe Fagle, spoke during a German press conference saying, "Google is not an invader of countries."

Michael Jones said that his company wouldn’t engage in battle with privacy advocates, they’d rather learn from them.

Fagle reported that Google is "giving people the chance to send in their addresses so that they can have their houses excluded from the service at launch, and have their dwellings deleted from the raw data."

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 7:47 AM

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Google Reiterates Support For Uncensored Results In China

Back in January, Google made its "new approach to China" and the company sounded if the company might leave the country within the month. Well, this never happened. But according to testimony given today before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, Google hasn't forgotten its ultimatum.

Nicole Wong, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, spoke about China, the Internet and censorship by saying, "The attack on our corporate infrastructure and the surveillance it uncovered - as well as attempts over the past year to limit free speech on the Web even further - led us to conclude that we are no longer willing to censor our results in China and we are currently reviewing our options."

Wong then argued, "This decision is in keeping with out pledge when we launched Google.cn that we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. As we stated then, if we determine that we are unable to achieve our objectives, we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China."

Wong didn't provide any sort of timetable about when Google will reach a decision.

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 8:59 AM

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Google Upgrades Ad-Serving Product for Publishers

Google announced a new DoubleClick for Publishers. This service is known as the “next generation of ad serving technology for publishers.

"For the past few years, we've been investing in a suite of solutions — AdSense, ad-serving technology and the DoubleClick Ad Exchange — to help online publishers make the most money possible from their content, whether they sell advertising directly through their own sales force, through an ad network such as AdSense, or a combination of both," says Vice President of Product Management Neal Mohan. "For major online publishers — including social networks and online communities, entertainment sites, e-commerce sites and news sites — managing, delivering and measuring the performance of ads on their websites can be a hugely complicated process. A publisher's ability to manage this process can have a significant impact on how much money they make from their online content."

The new release will include a new interface, which will save users time and lessen the amount of errors and provide more detailed reporting. Google says it has "sophisticated algorithms" that will automatically improve ad performance and delivery.

DoubleClick for Publishers will also include a new public API that allows publishers to build and integrate their own applications with this service. They could also integrate third party applications create for the service into their own.

DoubleClick for Publishers will be available in two versions, one for large publishers and another for small businesses. The later is free and a lot easier.

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 8:32 AM

Google's DoubleClick Gets a New Look

Google announced the new release of DoubleClick for publishers, which will be available in two versions (for large and small publishers). The new release also comes with a new logo makeover for the program.

"To reflect our continued investment in DoubleClick's products, as well as the central role of DoubleClick's technology products within Google's display advertising business, we're also today unveiling some changes to the DoubleClick logos — including typeset changes, incorporating a new 'by Google' theme and retiring the 'DART' brand," explains Vice President of Product Management Neal Mohan.

"This is the next generation of Google Ad Manager, bringing many requested features such as a new web services API, an improved user interface, and new reporting capabilities," says Google Ad Manager Product Manager Alex Vogenthaler. "We will be upgrading all Google Ad Manager accounts to DFP Small Business automatically. GAM users will see the new DFP Small Business name and logo within the product and related resources upon completion of the upgrade. Usernames, passwords, ad delivery data and account data will be unaffected by this change. New customers signing up for Google Ad Manager today will automatically be upgraded on the same schedule as current Ad Manager publishers."

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 8:28 AM

Monday, February 22, 2010

Google Expands Maps Into Much More of Africa

Google is expanding Google Maps into 30 African countries where it wasn’t available before.

"One of the things we spend a lot of time thinking about at Google is how we can make the world's information more accessible and useful to people all over the globe," Google says. "This includes providing rich local geographic data because, after all, a huge number of search queries have a geographic component. Our efforts to start putting Africa on a map kicked off back in 2009 when we announced the launch of Google Maps for Kenya. Not long afterwords, we announced that users across 45 African countries could build and edit maps in Map Maker. Most recently, we launched Google Maps for South Africa."

Google Maps launched domains for 30 more countries, this means not just scenery and roads for these countries, but also local business listings. Doing so can drive a lot of business to brick and mortars. Search engines have almost replaced print yellow pages for a lot people, and businesses in these countries should feel the effects of that as the listings grow.

Google is encouraging users in the new countries to get involved and help them make the maps better. "You know your local area better than we do, which is why Map Maker is on offer. With Map Maker, any user can create or edit map data, ranging from schools to local businesses, national parks to taxi stops. If you know your local area, or you've seen something that's missing, take up the opportunity to get mapping! As we've pointed out before, maps are also invaluable for governments, NGOs, universities and entrepreneurs, who can visualize, plan and market the areas and projects that they work on."

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 8:16 AM

Friday, February 19, 2010

Introducing the Yahoo and Microsoft Search Alliance

Yahoo and Microsoft received regulatory clearance to form a search alliance. This is a major and exciting milestone and the first step in their combined effort to help you reach even more customers with greater ease and efficiency.

What's to come?
No immediate changes will be made to your Yahoo Search Marketing account. Both companies are committed to making it a seamless and beneficial transition for you as much as possible. Their goal is the best quality transition of advertisers and partners in the U.S. before the 2010 holiday season. Though you might have to wait until 2011 if they decide that this will be more effective. You will get more information three months in advance about what to expect.

How the Yahoo and Microsoft Search Alliance Will Benefit You
Once implemented, the Yahoo and Microsoft Search Alliance will enable you to:

Reach more customers
  • Reach up to 150 million searchers and get approximately 62 percent more search volume than on Yahoo alone through the new and unified search marketplace combining the Yahoo and Microsoft networks.
  • To help drive future growth in search volume, Yahoo will continue to significantly enhance the search experience on its leading web properties
Save valuable time and effort
  • Just log into one place, Microsoft's adCenter, to manage campaigns for greater efficiency and a better ROI.
  • With just one buy you can reach other users on Yahoo and Microsoft sites, as well as other premium partner sites.
Benefit from rapid innovation
  • Yahoo will deliver new features and innovations to the world's favorite online destinations, content and web products used by hundreds of millions of consumers to connect to the people and things that matter to them most.
  • Microsoft will innovate the underlying technologies that drive high quality algorithmic and paid search results.

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 8:17 AM

Friday, February 12, 2010

New Chrome For Mac Beta Boasts Extensions

It seems that Chrome for MAC isn’t on the same level as the regular version of Chrome. This will make MAC fans feel neglected and Google can be missing out on a lot of potential users.

Google has fixed this issue and now there’s a new Chrome for MAC beta with extensions and some more upgrades was released. Bookmark sync is the newest feature to Chrome for MAC. This is beneficial for those who have more than one computer or work from home. It will be able to bookmark transfer involving Windows and Linux.

Software engineer Mark Mentovai wrote on the Google Chrome Blog, "We also added bookmark and cookie managers in a way that feels completely at home on the Mac. For technically-oriented users, our new Task Manager will help you keep tabs on all of your tabs."

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 8:48 AM

YAHOO! Mobile Blog Launches

YAHOO! might be doing much more for mobile before you know it. At least that’s what they’re telling people about its current cell phone-related efforts. The company launched the YAHOO! Mobile Blog this week to keep consumers up to date.

YAHOO!’s Vice President of Global Mobile Products, Irv Henderson, wrote an introductory blog post where he wrote that, "You can expect to learn about new product launches and enhancements, quick tips and tricks, our take on market trends, and predictions for where we see the market is heading."

He also gave us a little hint about what’s to come in 2010. "So what's to come in 2010? Three developments will play a key role in shaping the mobile industry: Powerful browsers, the OS as a launching pad, and local content."

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens with that. At least we can count on YAHOO! to blog about it.

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 8:44 AM

Google's Newest Effort to Make the Web Faster

YouTube launched a "Speed Dashboard", which will make it easier to get speed information about videos. The “Dashboard,” which will be available to users will offer “granular insight into what your YouTube video speed looks like,” according to YouTube’s Chris Dale.

"We think it's pretty cool and all part of our goal to make the web a faster place," he adds.

This will affect your YouTube video speed, the speed of your Internet connection, the Internet Service Provider (ISP) your using and the distance to the video servers. Users will now be able to compare their video speed to other regions and different ISPs.

"We may also list the YouTube speeds for users in your neighborhood but with different ISPs," says YouTube. "The speed numbers are calculated by measuring the speed at which YouTube video is received by the browser. This is then averaged over the previous 30 days provided you've used the same browser during this time period."

Over the past year Google has been working on the speed. They’ve talked about making page speed the main factor in ranking search results. Google has provided webmasters with a lot of tools to help increase their own speeds.

The YouTube dashboard can be viewed here.

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 8:40 AM

Monday, February 8, 2010

Google Lets AdSense Publishers Donate Earnings to Haiti Relief

Google has launched an AdSense feature that will allow AdSense publishers to donate their earnings to Haiti earthquake relief efforts.

"We're currently accepting donations from AdSense publishers with an unpaid account balance through January 31, 2010," says Google's Elizabeth Ferdon. "To see what your unpaid account balance is, please visit the 'Payment History' page within your account. Your January earnings will post in the next few days, so feel free to refer to your 'Advanced Reports' page for an earnings estimate until those are finalized."

Publishers can either donate a portion or all of their unpaid balances starting the end of January. "As you may expect, there are certain restrictions to donating, and all our normal policies still apply -- so even if you're donating, please don't ask others to click on your ads in order to increase your earnings," says Ferdon.

Google will not process donation requests from publishers whose request to donate more than their unpaid balance through January 31, or if they are subject to tax-withholding, their account has been disabled for invalid activity or other violations of terms and conditions, or if their accounts display the messages: "please submit your tax information", "please enter your PIN", or "please verify your phone number".

Partners in Health is the organization that will receive the donations. They will go to provide medical aid.

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 9:29 AM

Friday, February 5, 2010

Clicker Partners With UCLA On Online Video Site

Clicker, the online video guide, announced it has partnered with UCLA on a new service that brings online entertainment and university video content to students via the school’s Web portal, MyUCLA.

This partnership is giving students access to content from sites and networks like ABC, MTV, PBS, Hulu and YouTube. The content will features TV shows, music videos, movies, web original and UCLA content like lectures and symposiums.

"College students are clearly some of the most avid consumers of online media," said Jim Lanzone, founder and CEO of Clicker.

"Our new service will give UCLA students a more effective way to find legal online entertainment, and a more efficient way to access UCLA's substantial body of original videos, together in one seamless experience. UCLA on Clicker will take the guesswork out of finding what is available to watch, where to watch it, and what's worth watching online."

Clicker said its co-branded version of its service combines its existing 600,000-episode catalog with original videos from UCLA. Also, UCLA on Clicker was developed and will be supported without student dollars. The site is available to UCLA students for free.

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 9:08 AM

Google Introduces Multi-Touch To Nexus One

No one’s surprised that when the Nexus One was released, it was compared to the iPhone, and the Android device came up short was the multi-touch. Now an over-the-air software update will let the Nexus One users to pinch and zoom all they want.

The pinch-to-zoom function will work when people are messing with the phone’s browser; it’s gallery or the Google Maps applications. This will be a good thing to those who though they’d be without this feature permanently. There’s a possibility that this update will get a few extra purchases as well.

The addition is not the end of the update either. "[W]e will provide a general fix to help improve 3G connectivity on some Nexus One phones," promised an official blog post. "Will now be available directly on your device by launching it from your All Apps menu. Just use your Nexus One camera to start searching the web,” was added.

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 8:53 AM

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Ad Networks See Increased Adoption

The majority (69%) of media planners and agencies now use online advertising networks as part of their digital ad buys. This represents a 24 percent increase in the past 18 months, according to Adify Media.

"Especially in light of the Dynamic Logic study that found that creative quality is 50 to 75 percent responsible for campaign success or failure, agencies must start evaluating the creative capabilities of networks," said Russ Fradin, president of Adify.

"As the industry looks for better ways to engage, not just reach, their audience, brands need to focus on compelling creative that builds an ongoing conversation with consumers and placing it where consumers spend time."

Other key findings from the survey include:

- More money is being allocated online each quarter:

- 56 percent of respondents' budgets were more than $500k in 2008.

- 73 percent were over $500k in 2009.

- In 2009, 37.9 percent of the respondents spend between $1-5 million per quarter on online advertising, 15.2 percent of respondents spend

- $5-20 million per quarter, and 5.9 percent spend more than $20 million

per quarter on online advertising.

Branding is a major focus for online ad campaigns:

- 83 percent of respondents allocate 50 percent or more of their budget to branding vs. direct response.

Awareness of vertical ad networks (VANs) continues to grow as a way to reach niche audiences:

- 72 percent are familiar with VANs versus 56 percent in 2008.

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 8:51 AM

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Google Highlights Answers in Search Results

Google launched a new search feature called "answer highlighting," based on Google Squared. The new feature was announced at Google’s structured date project last year at the company’s Searchology event. The feature highlights answers to applicable searches within the search snippet.

So, if the query is “empire state height,” it’ll bold the actual answer for that, as well as the words used in the search.

"Most information on the web is unstructured. For example, blogs integrate paragraphs of text, videos and images in ways that don't follow simple rules. Product review sites each have their own formats, rating scales and categories. Unstructured data is difficult for a computer to interpret, which means that we humans still have to do a fair amount of work to synthesize and understand information on the web," says Google. "Google Squared is one of our early efforts to automatically identify and extract structured data from across the Internet. We've been making progress, and today the research behind Google Squared is, for the first time, making search better for everyone with a new feature called 'answer highlighting.'"

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 9:05 AM

Monday, February 1, 2010

Delicious Launches New Features, More on the Way

Delicious introduced some new features in the categories of bookmark display options, tag options and bookmark browsing.

A bookmark display option was combined in one spot to right of the tagbar and underneath the bookmark count. The new features include a privacy filter, a send recipients options and an “open bookmarks in” option. This will allow users to filter bookmarks by “only private” or “only public.”

Delicious moved the tag options out of the blue action box and into the sidebar where the tags are actually listed. The feature is the same, just in a different spot.

The new feature, “Browse these bookmarks” is in the form of a link in the action box that will allow users to open the first bookmark and display a small frame on the top of the page, where they can paginate through the bookmarks.

"We're still working on the feature and more functionality will be added over the coming months, but based on how useful we’ve found it, we wanted to give you a chance to start using it sooner rather than later," says Simon on the Delicious blog. "We'd love to get your feedback on this feature and suggestions for other features. We know what we want to add to it, but your responses will help us gauge what we should work on adding next."

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 9:06 AM

Intel Shows Off Interesting Way to Access Content

Intel had a lot going on at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. They introduced a new family of Intel Core Processors and cool proof-of-concept device on display. They called it the Intel Infoscape.

With Infoscape, a giant display featuring cubes of information, users can walk up to it and access different types on content: Google News, Tweets, blogs, Flickr images, etc. Infoscape is designed to view different ways of presenting content in the future. This giant cube is powered by Intel’s Core 17 processor and crabs about 20,000 different content sources.

According to Intel, the device was created to see how people might access and organize their content down the road.

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 9:00 AM

Chrome OS Touch Rumors Restart

The new iPad seems to be dominating this week, but there’s still some excitement about Chrome OS responding to touch, as a Google employee set off the hubbub.


Here is the disclaimer: What was said today didn't come near a definite "yes, we're working on that." It might have just been a sort of spoken misstep, and the most promising-sounding part may have been a sign of optimism not meant to signify any definite product plans.

Senior Product Manager Anders Sandholm had an interesting response when asked about Chrome OS and touch. According to Dan Grabham, Sandholm looked at a PR rep and “chuckled nervously,” and said, "I can't . . . I mean . . . right now we are targeting netbooks, that's what we're focused on, but I expect it to work well . . . we expect it to target everything up to desktop computers."

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 8:51 AM

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Google Announces Unicode Progress

Google made an announcement regarding Unicode. Google users will like the news because the searches should now turn up additional useful results.

On Google’s official blog, Mark Davis explained that, "[T]he characters 'fi' can either be represented as two characters ('f' and 'i'), or a special display form 'fi'. A Google search for [financials] or [office] used to not see these as equivalent - to the software they would just look like *nancials and of*ce."



He went on to add, "But no longer - after extensive testing, we just recently turned on support for these and thousands of other characters; your searches will now also find these documents."



Google’s tracking Unicode usage based on its index and Google believes that Unicode has nearly earned the “giant” moniker.

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 7:47 PM

Google Announces Another Android Device Giveaway

Game developers might hold Google and Android in higher regard after March 9th and 10th. Google announced that it will give away a bunch of Android devices on those dates.

Google’s employed this strategy to build up hype leading up to the giveaway. For example, the 4,000 people who attended Google I/O received HTC Magics free of charge.

Now, "Google and GDC will . . . be providing complimentary Android phones to attendees who register for All Access or Tutorials and Summits passes by the Early Bird deadline of February 4, 2010. Qualified attendees will receive either a Nexus One or a Verizon Droid by Motorola, so they can quickly apply what they learn from the various Android sessions,” as stated on the Android Developers Blog.

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 6:54 AM

Has Google Begun Changing How it Indexes the Web?

Google announced last summer a new project titled, “Caffeine,” which the company described as a “re-write of Google’s web search architecture.”

Before the holidays, Google made it a point to let everyone know that Caffeine won’t be rolled out until after the holidays. January at the absolute earliest. They did this because Google didn’t want to shake up everything during an important time for business.

They let everyone know about its intentions at PubCon in November. Recently, Google’s Matt Cutts posted a video running through his presentation from the event on his blog. Through the slideshow, it covers how much more than just Caffeine. It’s definitely worth checking out

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 6:46 AM

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Google Launches Cost-Per-Call Tracking for TV Ads

Google launched a new feature for Google TV Ads, where advertisers can automatically receive cost-per-call data through the service for TV campaigns that utilize Google supplied toll-free phone numbers. Google says this feature was designed to give TV advertisers access to richer performance data. This will allow more effective optimization based on real-time call data.

"The system tracks incoming calls and matches each call down to the network, daypart and even program level," explains Google's TV Ads team. "Advertisers will find these metrics in their campaign 'Targets' tab which reports data like 'Live Inquiries,' "Drag Inquiries" (calls that come in a significant time after an ad has aired) and cost-per-inquiry."



"Our system takes into account the number of impressions, network, and time of day for each ad to help match calls as accurately as possible," they add. "In addition, the algorithm has been designed to predict call response with increasing accuracy as it learns from your data over time."
To use the feature, advertisers should log into AdWords, create a TV campaign, and sign up for one of Google's 866 numbers (in the phone numbers tab). Then, designate which ad creative will correspond with the number in the Ads tab.

According to Google, advertisers will see data appearing in the cost-per-inquiry columns in the Targets tab of each campaign within a few hours.

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 8:33 AM

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Details About How Google Handles Natural Language Search

Google has posted a piece to the Official Google Blog discussing Google's system for understanding synonyms in search. Author Steven Baker said, "An irony of computer science is that tasks humans struggle with can be performed easily by computer programs, but tasks humans can perform effortlessly remain difficult for computers."

Understanding human language has been one of Google’s biggest issues in artificial intelligence and they key to returning the best possible search results. Even though it’s far from perfect, Google has spent a good amount of times into this.

Here are some things that has to do with Google’s handling of synonyms that people should keep in mind:

1. Google routinely monitors its system for handling synonyms with regard to search result relevance.

2. Google says synonyms affect 70% of user searches across over 100 languages.

3. For every 50 searches where synonyms significantly improve search results, Google has only found one "truly bad" synonym.

4. Google doesn’t fix bad synonyms by hand, but rather makes changes to its algorithms to try and correct the problem. Baker hopes this will be fixed automatically in the future.

5. Google has recently made a change to how its synonyms are displayed: in SERP snippets, terms are bolded, just like the actual words you searched for.

6. Google uses "many techniques" to extract synonyms. Its systems analyze perabytes of data to build "an intricate understanding of what words can mean in different contexts"

7. Some words or initials can have tons of different meanings, and Google uses other words in the query to help determine the correct ones. For example, there are over 20 possible meanings for the term "GM" that Google's system knows something about.

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 10:20 AM

Digg Launches New Extensions for Firefox and Chrome

Digg has launched new extensions for the Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome web browsers. "A month ago, we announced new capabilities that let developers create writable applications with the Digg API," says Dig's Chris Howard. "We decided to put this to work ourselves and update our original Firefox Extension and also create a new Google Chrome extension at the same time. In both cases, you can now Digg stories as you browse the web, without having to come back to the Digg site each time."

The Chrome extension will include the Digg count for any URL. It will display to the right of the browser’s address bar, users can click it to see the title and comment count for that URL, as well as the button to “Digg” it.

There’s more to this with the Firefox extension. It improves upon the existing Firefox extension. Digg has moved the Digg count and button to the navigation bar so that the toolbar doesn’t have to open for users to Digg stories. The toolbar itself is smaller and added a keyboard shortcut functionality to make it easier to show and hide it. "This makes it really simple to check out the Digg story details for a URL and then close it when you're done," says Howard.

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 10:18 AM

Monday, January 25, 2010

Google Still Rules The Global Search Market

The U.S. is still the largest search market worldwide, while Google is still in the commanding position in the global search market, according to comScore.

"The global search market continues to grow at an extraordinary rate, with both highly developed and emerging markets contributing to the strong growth worldwide," said Jack Flanagan, comScore executive vice president.

"Search is clearly becoming a more ubiquitous behavior among Internet users that drives navigation not only directly from search engines but also within sites and across networks. If you equate the advancement of search with the ability of humans to cultivate information, then the world is rapidly becoming a more knowledgeable ecosystem."

The total global search market had more than 131 billion searches of people 15 or older in December 2009, which is a 46 percent increase in the past year. To break down the numbers, it represents more than 4 billion searches a day, 175 million per hour and 29 million per minute. The U.S. is the largest individual search marketing in the world with 22.7 billion searches, about 17 percent of searches globally.

Google sites were the top search property worldwide with 87.8 billion searches in December, 66.8 percent of the global search market. Google sites saw a 58 percent increase in search query volume over the past year. Yahoo sites ranked second globally with 9.4 billion searches, which is up 13 percent.

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 9:04 AM

Google Narrows Down Mobile Ad Targeting

Google announced that the company would now make sure that ads linking up to mobile app would download automatically and appear only on devices that actually offer those apps. Also, these ads will display a “download” link as opposed to a URL.

"Simply include 'itunes.apple.com/' or 'market.android.com/' followed by the app name in the ad's visible URL, and it will automatically display as 'Download iPhone App' or 'Download Android App,'" says Katrina Kurnit of Google's Inside AdWords crew.

Advertisers will have the option to select specific devices or carries for their ads in general.

"If you've chosen to show ads on iPhones and other mobile devices with full Internet browsers, you can now target specific mobile devices or carriers," says Kurnit. "This feature makes it easier for you to reach the right users if you have a carrier- or device-specific message. This includes landing pages that have been optimized for a specific device, billing relationships with certain carriers, or mobile apps developed for a specific platform. For example, if you sell iPhone cases, you can use device targeting to ensure that users with Android phones won't see your ads."

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 9:01 AM

Friday, January 22, 2010

Google's Stock Falls Despite Strong Numbers

Google's latest earnings report came out and the search giant is doing well during the fourth quarter of 2009. The only thing is, many people were hoping, or even wanting, it to do better because the stick has taken a plunge in after-hours trading.

Now here’s the good news. Google generated $4.95 billion in net revenue, topping a consensus estimate of $4.92 billion. The company reported $6.79 in terms of earnings per share, even though they were estimated to hit closer to $6.50.

Eric Schmidt thinks the company is right on track. "Google had a strong fourth quarter, with 17% year over year revenue growth," he said in a statement. "Given that the global economy is still in the early days of recovery, this was an extraordinary end to the year. As we enter 2010, we remain hugely optimistic about the Internet and are continuing to invest heavily in technological innovation for the benefit not only of our users and customers, but also the wider web."

Anyone who bought Google’s stock just before the closing of the market and earnings report coming in came out has lost a good amount of money; Google’s stock is down 4.33 percent in after-hours trading at the moment.

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 9:38 AM

Mozilla Says New Firefox 20% Faster Than Last Version

Mozilla has launched the latest version of its popular Firefox web browser, version 3.6. They say the new version is 20 percent faster than the previous version for web searching. The new features include:
  • Personas: Personalize the look of your Firefox by selecting new themes called Personas in a single click and without a restart
  • Plugin Updater: To keep you safe from potential security vulnerabilities, Firefox will now detect out of date plugins
  • Stability improvements: Firefox 3.6 significantly decreased crashes caused by third party software – all without sacrificing our extensibility in any way
  • Form Complete: When filling out an online form, Firefox suggests information for fields based on your common answers in similar field
  • Performance: Improved JavaScript performance, overall browser responsiveness, and startup time
  • Open Video and Audio: With the world’s best implementation of HTML 5 audio and video support, now video can be displayed full screen and supports poster frames

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 9:35 AM

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Initiatives to Strengthen YAHOO!’s Search Marketing Marketplace

YAHOO! has launch product enhancements designed to give you more transparency into the performances of the traffic you receive. Hoping to strengthen the YAHOO! Search marketing marketplace. This tool will help make it easier to manage campaigns.

Network Distribution
This feature lets you set up campaigns or ad groups targeting YAHOO! Search, YAHOO! Partners or both. While campaign objectives will determine the best use of this, its best that advertisers target the Entire Network to maximize traffic volume while retaining the ability to bid p or down on YAHOO! Partners. For the best control and optimization, duplicate key campaigns with one targeting YAHOO! Search and the other targeting YAHOO! Partners.

Import Campaigns
Import Campaigns is designed to help you easily and efficiently convert your campaign data from Google AdWords into YAHOO! Search Marketing formats. Just download the third-party file and import it from your computer into Sponsored Search interface. Once the import is done, you’ll be able to view any errors and pause the campaigns for review.

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 9:01 AM

Report Suggests More Revenue, but Less Advertisers for Google

Competitive intelligence agency AdGooroo released a new report that indicates there has been a decrease in active advertisers for Google, despite projected Q4 gains.

"Google experienced a quality purge this quarter and banned what we believe to be more than 30,000 advertisers, accounting for about 5.3 percent of its active advertiser base," said AdGooroo Founder and CEO Rich Stokes. "While this typically signals a negative impact on revenues, AdGooroo also tracked increased competition for ad placement, resulting in higher ad prices for Google and unusually high click through rates. Google seems to be taking advantage of a strong Q4 to make some quality improvements."

The report states that ad coverage, which is steadily climbing and has been for the past 12 months, took a sudden dive in December and dropped almost 10 percent; from 5.48 ads per keyword in November to 4.97 in December.

The firm states that the fourth quarter has been strong for Google and they’re expecting it to be the case again this year. "This seasonal improvement has less to do with total search query volume (which historically is about the same as November), and more with increased competition for ad placement (higher ad prices) and unusually high click through rates," says AdGooroo.

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 8:59 AM

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Google Makes it Harder to Hide from Bad Reputation

Google is now including reviews from more sources on its Place Pages for businesses. They won’t be coming from review sites only; they’re coming from news and blog sites.

Mike Blumenthal, writer for the Understanding Google Maps & Local Search blog, has an in depth analysis of the change and got confirmation about it from Google Maps Product Manager Carter Maslan.

"This change portends a dramatically changed review landscape where both the volume of reviews for some types of businesses will rise and the dynamics of reputation management will change. It could very well shift the balance of power away from centralized review sites and could be one more impediment to any recovery of the IYP sites," says Blumenthal.

"Google Maps is now using the new capability of sentiment analysis to better understand content and add 'reviews' from non traditional sources like newspaper articles and single blog entries that appear across the internet," he says. "This new capability will dramatically increase the reach of hyperlocal blogs, change how businesses manage the review process and could, over the long haul, change how and where reviews are generated and aggregated."

It’s no surprise that Google wants to reach more sources for review, like content on Place Pages. Considering the breadth of information Google indexes, it’s pretty obvious that Google would bring together information about a business from a variety of sources. It is not particularly surprising that Google would reach to more sources for review-like content on Place Pages.

Given they offer customers a positive experience, Google’s inclusion of more sources in place Pages can benefit from this. It can be hard to get a good reputation if you don’t deliver something positive to begin with. This addition will make it harder for businesses to hide a bad reputation.

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 10:11 AM

Internet Users Favor Google Over Newspaper websites

It's not secret that U.S. newspapers print circulation is declining and will continue to do so since consumers are constantly going online for their news, according to Outset. The form is predicting that there will be a 3.5 percent annual drop in both the daily and Sunday circulation, leading to 43 million Sunday newspaper readers as opposed to the 62 million in the early 90s. “Among the aggregators, Google’s effect on the newspaper industry is particularly striking,” said Outsell analyst Ken Doctor.

He also added that even though Google is driving some traffic to newspapers, “it’s also taking a significant share away. A full 44 percent of visitors to Google News scan headlines without accessing newspapers’ individual sites.”

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 10:07 AM

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Will Apple and Google Have Some Real Smartphone Competition?

In November, Sony Ericsson announced its new smartphone, the Xperia X10. The much anticipated by mobile enthusiasts is expected to give popular phones (the iPhone, Google) some serious and quite interesting competition. At the recent Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Sony Ericsson was of course demonstrating this device.

"The XPERIA X10 is a fantastic example of our make believe philosophy because we are pushing the boundaries of what is possible and demonstrating that anything consumers can imagine, we can make possible," Rikko Sakaguchi, EVP and Chief Creation Officer, Sony Ericsson said. "With the X10, we are raising the bar we have set ourselves with entertainment-rich phones like Aino and Satio by making communication more fun and playful, multiplying and enriching opportunities to connect."

A couple of the device's interesting features include "Timescape" and "Mediascape". Timescape provides users with a chronological collection of all their communication (email, Facebook, text messages, phone calls, etc.) on the phone in a single place. Mediascape is a similar functionality, but it stores music, videos and photos. It also has some cool facial-recognition functionality.

"The XPERIA X10 and the family of phones launching in the first half of 2010 underpin our commitment to an open and multi-platform strategy that maximizes choice for the consumer and delivers the best possible consumer experience," says Bert Nordberg, President, Sony Ericsson. "The reaction from our global operator partners to the XPERIA X10 has been extremely positive and we will be rolling out across the world including Japan from the first half of 2010."

US release date is unknown at this time.

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 8:53 AM

Avast Software Added To Google Pack

Google has revised its approach to connect people with security products. Avast Free Antivirus is now included in eight different versions of the Google Pack bundle of the software. When you download the Google Pack, you’ll see Avast’s logo among the symbols of Chrome, Google Earth, Picasa, and a handful of other things. This endorsement should help Avast Free Antivirus Version 5 find its way onto more than a few new computers.

Oddly enough though, the Spyware Doctor with Anti-Virus and not Avast’s product is still recommended to anyone that takes a look at Google Pack in English. If it’s because the change is an experiment or Google’s been caught mid-rollout, it’s still unsure. Or it could be that Google wants to split hairs because of what security software is most effective in different markets.

It’s more likely that this adjustment represents some form of payback. It was noted that Avast’s blog announced that the software would offer users the option to install Google Chrome.

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 8:51 AM

More Complaints Filed Against Google In Germany

It seems the executives and lawyers at Google Germany have been working really hard lately. This weekend, words spread about three complaints against the organized were filed with Germany’s Federal Cartel Office.

Ciao, a Microsoft-owned online network for shoppers, is behind one of the complaints. Euro-Cities, which is a mapping site, and publishers' associations BDZV and VDZ, are responsible for the other two. They're unhappy about an advertising contract, Google Maps's lack of fees and Google News's use of snippets.

Kay Oberbeck, spokesperson for Google Germany, responded by telling the Deutsche Presse-Agentur, "We are very willing to explain our products and business practices to the Cartel Office and show that we are convinced these are in line with German and European law."

Not matter how much Google is of its compliance; the company could be facing an uphill batter. Earlier this month, Germany's justice minister alleged, "what's taking shape there to a large extent is a giant monopoly," and Google's been treated with hostility many previous times in the country, too.

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 8:49 AM

Monday, January 18, 2010

Google Files FCC Submission, Talks Open Internet Goals

Google has filed a submission, on its own and one jointly with Verizon, to the FCC for its proposed rulemaking docket. Google says its goal is "to keep the Internet awesome for everybody."

"There's a lot of awesome stuff on the Internet: Cats talking LOLspeak. Iranian dissidents tweeting. Live traffic updates. Science experiments," says Rick Whitt, Washington Telecom and Media Counsel on Google's Public Policy Blog. "All of these things, and so much more, are possible because of the openness of the Internet. Any entrepreneur with an idea has always been able to create a website and share their ideas globally – without paying extra tolls to have their content seen by other users. An open Internet made Google possible eleven years ago, and it's going to make the next Google possible."

Here’s an outline as to what Google supports in its FCC filing:
  • Adding a nondiscrimination principle that bans prioritizing Internet traffic based on the ownership (the who), the source (the what) of the content or application;
  • Adding a transparency principle that ensures all users have clear information about broadband providers' offerings;
  • Providing a carefully-defined "reasonable network management" exception so that broadband providers are empowered to address genuine congestion issues and protect against hazards like malware and spamming;
  • Applying general openness protections to both wireline and wireless broadband infrastructure; and
  • Creating better enforcement mechanisms at the FCC, and introducing the concept of technical advisory groups (TAGs) to potentially provide expert advice and resolve disputes.
The FCC's OpenInternet.gov has quite a bit of posts about liveblogging the recent "Innovation, Investment, and the Open Internet" workshop up, which featured discussion from a variety of people about the Open Internet.

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 7:40 AM

Yahoo Shows Interest In Yelp

Carol Bartz is showing quite a bit of interest in acquiring Yelp. She was recently interviewed by Brian Womack and was asked about buying the site that’s known for its fast-growing collection of local reviews. Bartz, who’s known for speaking plainly, didn’t give a definite “yes” or “no” answer.

Instead, YAHOO!’s CEO said, "Local is extremely important. People do some outrageous percentage of their commercial spending five miles from their home." Even though Bartz’s answer isn’t exactly affirmative, the odds favor anything happening. The rumor mill later year indicated that Google is trying to acquire Yelp, with Google’s popularity & deeper pockets couldn’t secure a deal, it’s difficult to imagine YAHOO! succeeding.

This isn’t a definite “YAHOO! will acquire Yelp” announcement so much as an exercise in parsing CEO’s sentences.

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 7:38 AM

Friday, January 15, 2010

Google's Place Pages Just Got More Useful

Google is bringing in new features for its recently launched Place Pages for local businesses. Businesses can instantly post data to their Place Pages from Google’s Local Business Center dashboard. When you log in, all you need to do is post updates, coupons, announcements, etc. and they will all be live within minutes.

This tool can be extremely useful for Internet marketing companies or other businesses that are running time-sensitive promotions and want people to use Google to find a local service in that area to see them.

Google is also introducing a badge for listings that have been claimed in the Local Business Center. "This helps our users identify listings that have been updated and improved by their business owners, helping them to trust that the information about your business is as accurate as possible. We are also making it even easier to claim your listing directly from the Place Page by following the 'Business owner?' link," says Google. While the badges have been out for a while now, they haven’t been “formally” launched.

"We're excited about how Place Pages can help business owners connect with the large number of new and existing customers who visit these pages each day. These users come to Place Pages to easily find basic information, photos, and reviews about your business, as well as a map, Street View photos, and nearby transit information to help them get to your doorstep."

Local search and Place Pages appear to be an increasingly growing part of Google's focus. The Favorite Places program and "Near Me Now' feature are more evidence of that.

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posted by Angie Rentmeester at 9:25 AM

Monday, December 14, 2009

Annotations For Google Analytics

Do you ever notice weird trends in your Google analytics, and you have no idea why? Well, Google has now created a new program that allows you to annotate directly into your analytics account as long as you have access.

Now you don't have to run around the office trying to find out why you only received 25% of the clicks you normally get because the server went down for most of the day or when the new website was launched, so you can determine how if performs compared to the old website.

With more and more companies utilizing analytics to supplement their Google AdWords management, this is great because hours of research can now be eliminated as long as the annotation was made. Essentially, your Google analytics annotations can be a log book for all online marketing that was started and/or halted or new website design actions.

Now running many marketing teams, having agencies working on something or something new a webmaster has done, you can see why your conversions or clicks increased or decreased.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your online marketing with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization and pay per click campaign management.

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posted by Bjorn Torling at 1:18 PM

Monday, November 30, 2009

Key Google AdWords Management Editorial Policies

When running a Google AdWords management account, knowing the key AdWords editorial policies is important. Today, we are going to discuss some that beginner Google AdWords users may or may not know.

1. Spacing - When writing an ad make sure you use proper grammar as far as spacing. Do not put hyphens between every word like F-r-e-e-s-h-i-p-p-i-n-g, or no space after a sentence like Free Shipping.Buy Now. Make sure you at least one space. You do not need to have 2 spaces.

2. Punctuations and Symbols - Do not use a symbol, letter or number is place of a word. Buy Shoes 4 Less is not acceptable. You must spell out "for." You also cannot use @ in place of "at," or U instead of "you." For punctuations, you cannot use more than one exclamation point in an Google AdWords marketing ad, and it can never be placed in the title.

3. Capitalization - Here is a very common policy that is broken quite a bit. You cannot capitalize a whole word. FREE is not acceptable, but what is acceptable is capitalizing the first letter of every word, and is highly recommended.

4. Repetition - Google AdWords editorial policy does not allow you to repeat a word to draw attention to an ad like Free Free Free.

5. Competitive Claims - It is great to think you are the best or #1, but this must be verified by a third party and shown on your website to be able to use this in pay per click campaign management.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords management with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization and PPC help.

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posted by Bjorn Torling at 11:45 AM

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

AdWords Editor 7.6.1 Upgrade

Today Google made an upgrade to their AdWords Editor software, which will help with Google AdWords management.

Google AdWords Editor 7.6.1 was released today for Windows and Mac, so let's take a look at some of the improvements Google made:

1. Ad Scheduling and Location Targeting - The ad scheduling lets you update the times and days you would like your accounts to run, and the location targeting gives you the option to use radius targeting, exclude locations, and target a combination of cities.

2. Add and Update Multiple Campaigns - This is a great feature and must needed if you are an AdWords management company like us that deal with large accounts. Now you can update multiple campaign settings across multiple accounts at once.

3. Promoted Video Ads - AdWords Editor 7.6.1 now allows basic support for YouTube promoted ads. Download your ad into Editor and then you can add or modify ads with CSV imports.

4. Updated Keyword Expansion - With the Internet constantly growing it is no wonder that new searches are constantly popping up that a Google AdWords marketing team has to consider. Now Google AdWords has done an update to their Keyword Expansion tab that now has a link to "include additional terms" that can you can view based on your keyword results. Be careful though. Google likes to push some broad terms that can cause some serious damage to an account if not monitored properly.

For more information on the AdWords Editor 7.6.1 upgrade, check out Google's release notes here.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords management with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization and pay per click campaign management.

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posted by Bjorn Torling at 1:22 PM

Friday, November 13, 2009

Google Click Through Rate (CTR) And Pay Per Click Campaign Management

Today, I want to talk about click through rate (CTR) and how this affects your pay per click campaign management at Google.

Click through rate (CTR) is the number of times your ad was clicked on divided by the number of times the ad was shown (impression). Your ads and keywords have their click through rates unique to your own campaign, which is a common misconception.

So why is click through rate (CTR), so important to your Google AdWords marketing campaign? Well, according to Google, and I say this because I see a major flaw in their philosophy, which I will get to later in this blog, is a strong indicator of how relevant it is to a user and thus its overall success as a keyword in your account. A well targeted keyword that has a nicely targeted ad is going to perform better than a broad keyword with a broad ad. Pretty straightforward, and means you should group keywords about a certain product or service into an ad group with targeted ads, hence you have a nicely organized account, which should return high click through rates.

Now here is a problem that I have as an AdWords management company with the Google system when evaluating a low click through rate. According to Google, a low click through rate can point to poor keyword performance indicating a need to optimize the ad or keyword further. These low click through rates will affect your overall account quality score, so Google kind of forces you to not utilize these keywords. There are keywords out there that are that I believe have a huge search volume that are extremely relevant that Google will penalize you based on this system.

Let's look at an example. A Chicago realtor calls us for some PPC help. A term like Chicago real estate should be a great keyword for her. This keyword has 60,500 searches per month. To keep a 3% click through rate (CTR), she would have to pay for 1815 clicks. At a 2% click through rate, you would pay for 1210 clicks, 1% click through rate, 605 clicks and finally at a .05% click through rate, which definitely would be considered a poor keyword to Google, you would have to pay for 302 clicks. Now to be in the top 3, you would have to pay around $4.80 based on Google's estimates. So to keep a 0.05% click through rate, your budget would have to be at $1500 a month minimum, 1% click through rate, $3000, 2% click through rate, $6000, and finally at a 3% click through rate, $12000. This is just for one keyword!

I completely understand that this realtor should target specific areas in Chicago to keep the click through rate higher, but my point is this keyword is a great starting point for a customer that does not know the area. Now one thing that I did not point out is the $4.80 is based on the account having a nice quality score. As your quality score gets worse, you have to pay more per click, which makes it even harder to play in that space.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords management with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization and pay per click management.

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posted by Bjorn Torling at 7:20 AM

Monday, November 9, 2009

Easier Google AdWords Conversion Tracking Provides PPC Help

Google AdWords is providing even more PPC help with a new even easier conversion tracking interface. Implementing, monitoring and troubleshooting the way you track conversions is now as easy as it has ever been. With conversion tracking being so important to quantify your results it is no wonder that Google decided to make it as easy as they possibly could.

Now let's take a look at how Google decided to make their Google AdWords marketing even better by updating the Google AdWords conversion tracking interface.

First, let's login to your account. At the top of the page you have several categories. Go over to reporting and then scroll down to conversions, and click on it. Once you are on the conversions page, you are going to see 3 new tabs pop up. Conversions, webpages, and code. Let's discuss these.

1. Conversions - This is where you can see all the information about the Google AdWords conversion tracking you implemented, but there are other sections to discuss. "Tracking Status" is where you can look to see if you are tracking properly. "Tracking Purpose," which let's you know what you are tracking. A lead, signup, purchase/sale, or view of a key page. Lastly there is "Action Name," which you can name the conversion you are tracking.

2. Webpages - This is where you will see where on the website the conversion tracking was placed and coming from. This is great information for a PPC management company, because we do not place that code on the site most of the time, so now we can see where it came from.

3. Code - Lastly, but certainly not least, this is where the code is. Without the code, everything we have talked about does not work. Here you can also change the value of a conversion based on price increases or decreases.

If you are not currently utilizing conversion tracking in your Google AdWords management campaign, now is the easiest it has ever been to do it right. If you ever need help or have questions, please contact Google and they can help you, call Windy City Strategies and we can help you, or get more information from this Google blog post.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your online marketing with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization, website design and development and pay per click management.

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posted by Bjorn Torling at 4:24 PM

Monday, November 2, 2009

Google AdWords Management Comparison Ads

Google announced today that they are rolling out a new feature called AdWords Comparison Ads, which will help your Google AdWords management program even more. The AdWords Comparison Ad program will let users compare relevant ads more easily, and will let advertisers reach the consumers that are looking for your product or service specifically.

So why are Google AdWords Comparison Ads useful? Well, as an AdWords management company, bringing qualified and relevant traffic to our clients sites is our goal, and being able to quantify results is critical, and this is where Google is going to help us even more.

Let's say you were an insurance company. Is the term "insurance" a good keyword? It is pretty broad as far as insurance, but specific also if you sold all types of insurance, so can it be a good keyword? It is broad, so it will bring lots of clicks, but it is not typically a strong keyword for conversions, until now, possibly.

When a user searches "insurance," are they looking for auto, home, life, etc? AdWords Comparison Ads will show up and let users specify what they would like and then they can compare rates or companies side by side. If they click on the ad, it will direct them to a page with even more detailed results for the user. If the user finds what they like, they can either call directly or request a quote. Very nice, and of course can be tracked.

The AdWords Comparison Ads are still in the early stages, but again Google is at the forefront of innovation to improve searches. If would like to get more information about AdWords Comparison Ads visit this Google blog.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your online marketing with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization, website design and development and pay per click management.

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posted by Bjorn Torling at 3:30 PM

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Google AdWords Marketing Translator Toolkit

When running a Google AdWords marketing campaign for many countries and languages, translating your keywords and ads are typically a big problem unless you have someone that you work with or know that speaks that language. Even with that kind of help it becomes quite a process. Well Google is coming to your rescue again with the Google Translator Toolkit.

The Google Translator Toolkit will help you translate faster and easier with tools like translation search, custom terminology databases and bilingual dictionaries. This will dramatically improve your Google AdWords management process.

To utilize the Google Translator Toolkit, go into AdWords Editor and download an AdWords Editor Archive (AEA) file with your keywords and ads, and put it into the Translator Toolkit and it will automatically translate them. Pretty simple. From there you can utilize the multilingual optimizers and professional translators who will help optimize and localize your campaigns.

Now you are ready to download your file and upload it back to AdWords Editor.

The Google Translator Toolkit only translates your ads and keywords, so to make your targeting work better, make sure you create landing pages that are translated and the payment and support systems are ready for international customers.

For more information about the Google Translator Toolkit visit this Google blog.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your online marketing with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization, website design and development and pay per click management.

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posted by Bjorn Torling at 1:06 PM

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

AdWords Conversion Tracking Setup For Optimal Google AdWords Management

Continuing where we left off on our last blog, we are to the point where we are setting up the Google AdWords conversion tracking. The first step is deciding on the conversion tracking security level and language settings.

Let's start with the security level for your Google AdWords marketing campaign. This is simple. What is the security level of your conversion page? It is either https:// or http://. Most carts use the https:// level, and you can check by going to your conversion page and looking at the address bar in your web browser. If you are not sure, it does not hurt to just use the https:// security level. If you have any questions on this, a Google AdWords consultant could give you tips, so you do this properly.

Now the last step is setting up your language. For most people reading this blog, you will select English, but this is really up to what language the vast majority of the visitors to your site are. There will be a link on your conversion page that says "Google Site Stats Link," and whatever language you choose is what users get information about conversion tracking. Not a huge deal, since most people won't read it, but still should be done properly.

On our next blog, we will discuss the conversion types you can utilize to make the most out of your Google AdWords management.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords management with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization and pay per click management.

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posted by Bjorn Torling at 4:56 PM

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Understanding Conversion Tracking For Optimal Google AdWords Management Performance

Today, we are going to help you to understand conversion tracking, which will in turn make your rate on investment increase and make your Google AdWords management campaign perform better.

First we should define what a conversion is. A conversion through your Google AdWords account is when a user clicks on your AdWords ad and performs a behavior on your website that you deem as a sale or lead. A conversion could simply be someone purchasing something off your site, filling out a contact form for a quote, or downloading a white paper.

As you can see conversion tracking is extremely important, because it quantifies how well your pay per click management account is doing, and did I mention that this is free too!

So how do we set Google AdWords conversion tracking up? Well it is quite simple. All you need is a Google AdWords account and access to your website's HTML. Log into your account, and click on the Conversion Tracking link on the Campaign Management tab at the top of your account. From here you can start the process of setting up security levels, colors, type of conversion and other features, but we will discuss all of this in our next blog.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords management with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization and AdWords management services.

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posted by Bjorn Torling at 5:44 PM

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Google AdWords Image Ads

Today we are going to discuss image ads that can be placed on Google to supplement your Google AdWords marketing, their features, how to create them and guidelines. First off, image ads are a great way to differentiate yourself from your competition because many companies don't do them, but more importantly they look better than a regular text ad.

Image ads are only shown on the content network, so you can either use a placement or keyword targeting. If you use keyword targeting, make sure you opt yourself into the content network, and is in a separate campaign, so you can track results better. This is important when using the content network versus search, because Internet marketing is quantifiable, and you want to know what works and what does not, and proper organization is extremely important. Please consult with an AdWords management company to get this right

Now, image ads are graphic ads that can be motionless or animated, and are shown on content sites that have opted into the Google AdWords image ad program. Static (motionless) image ads can be formatted in .gif, .jpg, and .png, while animated image ads can be in .gif or Flash. Make sure you image ads reflect your site, and advertise your product or service.

Here are the sizes your Google AdWords image ads can be in for static and animated:

* 250 x 250 Square
* 200 x 200 Small Square
* 468 x 60 Banner
* 728 x 90 Leaderboard
* 300 x 250 Inline Rectangle
* 336 x 280 Large Rectangle
* 120 x 600 Skyscraper
* 160 x 600 Wide Skyscraper

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords management with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization and pay per click management.

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posted by Bjorn Torling at 5:07 PM

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Google Caffeine Update

Did you know that Google currently is testing a new web search called Google Caffeine, which is an upgraded version of their current search engine. Google wants this new web search to be able to crawl a big chunk of the web, index those pages and compute their quality and then rank and return those results to users as quickly as possible. Google Caffeine is essentially going to be able to increase the index size, speed, accuracy and comprehensiveness of their web search.

This new infrastructure is currently is beta testing, but Google has opened a preview, so you can go in and look under the hood so to speak. Now a lot of the systems are not currently working, but they want feedback on search on the current system compared to the new Google Caffeine. They would also like to know if you notice certain web sites rank better than others or if a site should not even rank for a certain query.

Well, here is how you give feedback. Go to www2.sandbox.google.com, and search for something. If you are displeased with something, scroll to the bottom and click on "Dissatisfied? Help Us Improve." Click on the link, enter your feedback in the text box, and make sure you enter "caffeine" somewhere in the text box.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords management with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization and pay per click management.

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posted by Bjorn Torling at 8:08 AM

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Google AdWords Management Quality Score

If you are doing any Google AdWords management you are quite familiar with the term "quality score," but do you know what it means? Well today we are going to discuss what Google's quality score is and how it affects your AdWords account.

Quite simply, quality score is Google's way of measuring keyword relevance. It is based on your keyword's click through rate, ad text relevance and landing page among other things. This quality score is calculated every time your keyword matches a search query made at Google.

Now how does Google use this quality score? Well, they use quality score to influence how much your cost per click's (CPC) are going to be, along with first page bid estimates. They also use it to determine if your ad is even eligible to enter the ad auction, so essentially the higher your quality score the better your ad position, and the less you pay per click.

Google says this helps that only the most relevant ads show at Google and its search partners.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords management with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization and pay per click management.

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posted by Bjorn Torling at 1:05 PM

Monday, August 17, 2009

Why Do Google AdWords Management?

So why would you utilize a Google AdWords management program? Well, it is quite simple. 80% of Internet users see Google AdWords ads each month in the United States, and hundreds of thousands more across seas. That is what you call instant access to a large audience.

Now some of the benefits of doing Google AdWords marketing is that you can target your ad to an audience looking for your product and service. This is critical because every day people are looking for your product or service and you want to engage those customers at that exact moment. This also means that a proper setup of your Google AdWords management is critical, so you make sure you do not stray from your target audience, which will impact your overall return on investment.

Google AdWords is also extremely cost effective, because you can set your own budget, the amount you would like to pay per click at a keyword level, or you can pay based on impressions. The choice is up to you. Of course, all of these can be changed at a moments notice.

The Google AdWords management system is quite flexible also. When you edit your ads, you can see the change online within 20 minutes. The system is available to you 24 hours a day, and you can see your listing on Google almost immediately after you have entered your credit card.

Now remember that if you chose to outsource your AdWords account, make sure you find a certified AdWords management company, as they have the knowledge to take your account to the next level.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords management with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization and pay per click management.

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posted by Bjorn Torling at 1:11 PM

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Organizing Your Google AdWords Management Account

Today we are going to discuss how to organize your Google AdWords management account better. The way you setup your account is the difference between success or eventual failure. So here are some tips to organize your Google AdWords account more logically at a campaign and ad group level.

Google AdWords marketing gives you the basic structure to work with, so really it is up to you to decide how you want to organize your campaign and ad groups.

Every keyword targeted account starts with a campaign. Each campaign, whether you have one or more needs to reflect a goal. Ask yourself, "What you would like to gain from this campaign." Are you trying to sell more product, a service, information, a certain audience, or more leads?

Well, here are some ways to organize your campaigns:

1. Product or Themes - safety vests, specific vitamin, etc

2. Use your website structure - Use the categories you have on your website as campaigns or ad groups.

3. Brands - If you sell jeans, use Levi, Lee, Gap, etc

4. Geography - Organize by the city or state that you target.

5. Language - Target the different languages that you target.

6. Distribution Preferences - Separate your search based keywords from your content network.

7. Budgets - Have different budget based on your campaigns.

Try mapping your account structure on paper first, and then you can get a good game plan when you translate it over to your Google AdWords management account.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords advertising with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization and pay per click management.

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posted by Bjorn Torling at 1:26 PM

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Local Business Advertising and AdWords Customized Targeting

Using customized targeting on Google AdWords for local business advertising is a great way to reach more qualified leads if you have an audience in a specific area to target. If you do choose to use the customized targeting option for your campaign, your ad will only show to searchers whose ip address are within the area you have defined.

Customized targeting is nice, because it does not limit you to cities and regions, so if you own a restaurant in Chicago you can target only the North Side. Here at Windy City Strategies, we recommend that you pick cities also if you choose to use the customized targeting, so you don't miss an area, and is recommended by Google too.

When you setup customized targeting, you have three options:

1. Enter a physical address - Enter your street or business address along with the distance, and it will show the radius of a circle around the address you entered. Now you will want to have at least a twenty mile radius as ip addresses are sometimes further away than you think. Google also recommends this. Only users in this circle will see your Google AdWords management ad.

2. Select a point on the map - Here you can define your own radius by dragging the interactive map to place a pointer on your place of business. This point will then automatically create a longitude and latitude, and Google AdWords will target your ad based on this. Not an ideal situation for advertisers. You probably want more control than that.

3. Multi point - This is great as you click on three or four points on a map to create the outline of a region that you would like to target your pay per click management ad. With this feature you can create any kind of size or shape. Have used this many times, and again we recommend to click cities also.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords marketing with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization and ppc bid management.

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posted by Bjorn Torling at 12:44 PM

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Google AdWords Management and Data Report Center

Your report center in your Google AdWords management account will be your best friend when you have to make critical decisions. Continuing on with our last blog, which talked about the basics of what you get when you activate Google AdWords conversion tracking, we will discuss the report center and how it will help in these decisions.

The report center in your Google AdWords management account gives detailed and specific conversion tracking information. You can create custom reports that will get you any conversion statistics that you will need like number of transactions, conversion rate, cost per transaction, and the related keywords that brought in these numbers. This is extremely important, and if you are to take anything away from this blog this is it. You must evaluate your keywords, because what you believe to work is not necessarily the truth, and you could cost your business a lot of advertising dollars that could be spent in better places. The careful evaluation of your actual conversions is the key to making your Google AdWords marketing optimized.

After you have created a custom report with the conversion tracking metrics you would like to track, you can evaluate the performance of your Google AdWords account. Conversion rate and cost per conversion are important numbers, but each individual conversion can lead to other transactions or they may come back later and purchase more items. So take a look at your transactions and cost per transaction as they may serve you better, since acquiring regular customers is more important than one conversion. Tracking these transactions will let you know how effective your advertising is along with the effectiveness of your site and product values.

Windy City Strategies account managers have been in the Internet marketing industry for over 10 years and will improve your Google AdWords management with our industry leading Internet marketing consulting, search engine optimization and ppc bid management.

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posted by Bjorn Torling at 7:37 AM

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